Friday, June 14
After surviving the walking and climbing steps in Nara and the temples, we arrived back in Osaka and decided to keep going by visiting Minoh Park. It is only about a 30 minute train ride from our station, so we were ready to go again! We didn't take into consideration that we would be walking along an approximately 3 km long path up another mountain. It was definitely worth the hike! The start of the walk is actually walking through the village on their street that is lined with small shops and eateries. Most of these were closed by time we arrived and their main tourist time is apparently in the fall when the leaves are changing to all their beautiful colors. There are Japanese Maples trees everywhere so you can imagine how beautiful it is in the Fall. One very interesting traditional food at this location is tempura battered maple leaves. I know it sounds weird and they are very different. I did eat one whole leaf and it really didn't have much taste other than the slightly sweet tempura batter - it was just crunchy! So that fulfilled my one strange Japanese food to taste for the day! Anyway, the walk was relatively easy until you started to get closer to the top, but even then they have it done in such a way that you don't have to struggle for too long. It seems to be a very popular place for local people to get their daily exercise routine done; we saw a ton of older people walking the path as well as a sports group running up and down the mountain. It is an absolutely beautiful, calming, and peaceful walk. The small little river from the waterfall runs along the path and there are various small drops that create more tiny waterfalls. There are also a couple of temples along the route but I don't believe they are open to the public. It was also much cooler under the canopy of trees than it was at the start, so we became much more comfortable as we walked. When we finally reached the top, we were treated with the view of the waterfall - it's not a major waterfall, but still very pleasant to watch. The park is also know for having wild monkeys, which Dr. Walker said he has never seen there. But, we were graced with the presence of one monkey for a short time and it was cool to see a wild monkey that was in its natural habitat without being in a zoo. My pictures of it didn't come out very good as he was up in a tree and not completely visible all the time. Then it became time to take the walk back down the mountain before it got too dark. The walk down was a lot easier and still very peaceful.
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| This is the equipment our shop used to fry the maple leaves. |
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| You can have someone give you a ride up the mountain! |
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Along many different walkways, you will see these little mini worship places where
people have placed flowers, food, and other items |
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| You can see the monkey's head at the top of this tree! |
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